PHILADELPHIA — Right now the Eagles know just one way to play, and that’s ridiculously fast. They ran 53 plays in just the first half of their season-opening win over the Washington Redskins.

The San Diego Chargers, the opponent today at Lincoln Financial Field (1 p.m., CBS Channel 3, WIP 94.1-FM), managed just 51 snaps in their first game. They bowed to the Houston Texans on a field goal as time expired.

Fatigue could be an issue today for the Chargers, who not only played on Monday night but on a short work week were required to fly more than 2,000 miles to play their second game.

Then again, the Eagles could be tired and not just because they played their first game under head coach Chip Kelly at warp-speed Monday. The Eagles are in a stretch of three up-tempo games in 11 days, including two in five days as they oppose Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs this Thursday. There’s only so much tempo to go around, right?

“Would you rather play three games in 11 days in Week 12 or would you rather play three games in 11 days right off the bat?” Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper asked. “That’s the way I look at it. And I’d rather play them right off the bat.”

The Eagles don’t have a choice. In their favor is the Chargers and new head coach Mike McCoy have just one game film to break down Kelly’s system, which spread out and confused the Redskins so thoroughly the Eagles hit the locker room with a laughable 26-7 lead at intermission.

With Michael Vick playing turnover-free football, LeSean McCoy gained 184 of the Eagles’ 262 rushing yards and DeSean Jackson had seven catches for 104 yards in the first game.

The Chargers were gashed for 449 yards by Matt Schaub and the Texans, who bounced back to win after trailing by three touchdowns in the third quarter. Linebackers Dwight Freeney and Jarrett Johnson are threats coming off the edges for the Chargers, who feed off their front seven in a 3-4 defense.

“They look fast on tape,” McCoy said. “Good athletes. The good thing is with those fast defensive ends and big linebackers it kind of helps our scheme out. You can run the ball. If they crash too hard it will take them out of the play and we’re out of the gate so that kind of works in our favor. We’ll see how that works out.”

One of the key matchups up front is Freeney against Eagles left tackle Jason Peters.

“Freeney jumped out,” Peters said. “He was beating that Texans tackle (Duane Brown) pretty good, and I think he’s a Pro Bowl tackle. I’m going to watch some more tape on him. They say he lost a step but I always respect his game.”

Defensively the Eagles will have their hands full with quarterback Philip Rivers, who beat them the last time they played. The 6-5, 228-pound Rivers threw four touchdown passes Monday. He also was victimized for a pick-six and was unable to manage a first down on the last five possessions.

“It’s that West Coast offense,” Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin said. “Their run game is inside the tackles. Last week the run game was outside the tackles. So you have to play that differently. And then the quarterback sits in the pocket and gets the ball off on time. Last week it was about the opposite. It was a quarterback that ran bootlegs and play-action. San Diego is completely different. We know they’re going to be passing it but it’s a timed offense. We know you need to re-route them to mess up the timing.”

Barwin hopes his teammates realize they’ve got to play better defense in the second half. The Eagles forced three turnovers in their opener. Except for the win, no one was happy about the way the game ended. The Redskins pulled within 33-27 on a touchdown pass with 1:14 remaining.

“We were in a bit of a prevent (defense),” Barwin said. “But we need to play that prevent better. We gave up a touchdown in our prevent. That’s not good enough. We were up 33-7 and we had to get an onside kick at the end of the game. As much as you dominate in the first half you’ve got to be able to finish it out.”

Kelly admitted taking the foot off the accelerator in the second half of the opener to kill the clock. The players weren’t ready for it.

At the same time, the Eagles feel like they left a lot of points on the field in that first game.

“We made a lot of mistakes last week that we could have capitalized on and scored touchdowns with,” tight end Brent Celek said. “But sometimes that happens in games. It’s all about winning. When we’re in those situations this week hopefully we don’t make the same mistakes that we made. It’s all about improving, getting better from the week before.”

The Eagles quietly are under orders not to discuss the Thursday showdown with their former head coach, Reid, until the completion of the Chargers contest. To keep the players focused on the day, Kelly lobbed them one of the slogans he used at Oregon.

“It’s a one-game season,” Cooper said. “We’ve just got to be better than the Chargers on Sunday.”